Teresa Z, Berned head diverse group in Serena's Song

The $60,000 Serena’s Song at Monmouth Park on Saturday has attracted a diverse group of 11 fillies and mares, who will meet at a mile and 70 yards.

Horses are coming into the race off layoffs, turf races, and sprints, others are dropping in class. Elandess enters off a two-month layoff and a turf sprint.

Christmas Sky, In the Navy Now, and Miss Inclusive will concede considerable weight to the other eight. They will carry 124 pounds. The rest of the field is assigned 117.

Teresa Z and Berned are among the top contenders.

Teresa Z, who is trained by Anthony Margotta Jr., won the Grade 3 Monmouth Oaks last year. She concluded her 3-year-old season with an eighth-place effort in the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx. She began this year in the Grade 1 Madison at Keeneland, finishing last of 10 in that seven-furlong race.

Teresa Z seems back at the right level in the Serena’s Song. Albin Jimenez has the mount.

Berned turned in an eye-catching effort to the win Safely Kept Stakes at Laurel Park in November but has not shown the same acceleration in her two races since, the Grade 2 Barbara Fritchie and the Grade 3 Distaff at Aqueduct.

All three of those races were seven furlongs, and she may welcome the stretch-out to two turns. Berned won a mile optional-claiming race at Monmouth last May and closed stoutly in the Grade 3 Charles Town Oaks going two turns in September.

Trainer Graham Motion has given the mount to Joe Bravo.

Christmas Sky is quick, as her glitzy past-performance lines show, but will be facing tougher rivals. She has won five of her last six starts while being well managed by Robertino Diodoro. Her wins, all at Aqueduct, have come in a $30,000 maiden claimer, a conditioned $35,000 claiming race, a $50,000 starter race, a first-level allowance, and the Karakorum Elektra.

While her last start may look like a stakes on paper, the Karakorum Elektra was part of the New York Claiming Championships. The four-horse field was restricted to fillies and mare who have started for a claiming price of $32,000 or less since Jan 1, 2017.

In the Navy Now put together back-to-back wins at Laurel over the winter for Mike Trombetta, taking a second-level optional claimer and the Nellie Morse Stakes. She fits here off a top effort, as does the John Servis-trained Miss Inclusive, who beat In the Navy Now in the Maryland Racing Media Stakes in February.